Unwanted wishes
by Semmett
Summary: Kohanna forces it's ninjas to do awful things and Iruka and Kakashi are no exception. Told from Iruka's POV. All chapters revised with *hopefully* no typos thanks copyninastral
1. Chapter 1

You stand, looking at the door as the seconds slowly pass you by; the thought of just leaving enters your mind

You stand, looking at the door as the seconds slowly pass you by; the thought of just leaving enters your mind. You turn to walk away when the door opens, and he stands there, his one eye showing his confusion. He knew you were there; he always does know where you are. He'd have been dead long ago if he didn't know when another ninja was close by. Yet, you're normally never this bold; he's always been the one to come to you, you've never come to him. He opens the door further signaling that you can enter, but you don't move. Neither says anything and after a moment he goes back indoors leaving the door so you can follow him. For second you don't move, until you will your legs to move and follow after him.

You act on autopilot. You may only be a chunnin, but some things become standard for a ninja. You make a sweep of the small, cramped place where the legendary jounnin lives: kitchen, bedroom, living room, and bathroom. The walls are adorned with pictures of scantily-clad women and posters of those wretched books he likes to read; floors and surfaces are littered with weapons and scrolls; food-encrusted plates sit unwashed in the sink. The place reminds you somewhat of Naruto's small home. You find yourself making internal notes of things that can be used as weapons and escape routes, quickly you mentally reprimand yourself. You've spent far too much time around the occupier of this flat.

Kakashi is sitting in the living room on his old, worn sofa as the T.V. plays quietly, and he is methodically cleaning his weapons. A small pile sits on one side, and on the other different weapons lie orderly, showing which have been cleaned and which haven't.

"Rule 23: A Shinobi must always make sure that their weapons are in good condition before a mission," he says, poking fun at you as if you wouldn't know the rules. Of course you know them: you teach them every year to a class of unruly kids. You rack your brains to think of which mission he's going on; with all of the time you put in at the mission room, you handle almost all the mission at one point in time, and you've no memory of him receiving one. As if sensing your thought, he answers your question, "All S-class missions are given directly from the Hokage. The less people involved the safer…" He doesn't finish the statement, but you get the underlying message, 'the less people involved, the easier it is to deny the mission and the ninja's existence.' You learned early on with him to always look underneath the underneath.

He glances up with his one eye that is so focused on removing an invisible stain and motions to the heap of weapons. Understanding, you place yourself opposite him. Sitting on the floor, you remove on kunai and take a rag, cleaning along the edges. Then you pick up a special whetted stone and run it along the edge, slowly sharpening the blade. The task is repetitive and boring but still it comforts you. Slowly the drone of the T.V. disappears, even the company you're in and the task you have to do seem to disappear. Every part of you is focused on the slight grating sound the metal makes as you run it along the stone to sharpen it. So focused are you that when he does speak you're taken by surprise, the kunai slipping out your hands and shallowly cutting one of your fingers.

"You're not normally the instigator." The words and their double meaning run circles in your head. You place the weapon beside the newly cleaned and sharpened ones and place the cloth against your finger hoping to stop the blood flow. He puts the weapons he's cleaning down and takes your hand. Removing the cloth, he brings it closer to him, and using the pretence of looking at the wound, he lifts your hand up to his face. Pulling his mask down, he takes your finger and sucks the blood away as if the wound were more serious. You can't help but admire the beauty of his face and the way the scar only seems to enhance him. All the while, his eyes rarely leave your face, wanting a reason for your appearance.

"I'm not here to instigate anything." You meant it to come out strong, but it's more of a strained whisper. He says nothing, but everything is conveyed in his eyes: then what did you come here for?

Suddenly the room seems too small, the temperature rises dramatically, and the two of you seem far too close. Memories of the near past bombard your brain, and you want nothing more than to run from this place, to put as much distance between the two of you. Your breath hitches, and you can feel sweat slowly making a trail down your back between your shoulder blades. You withdraw your hand and cradle it close to your chest; you have to do what you came here for. You stumble as you stand up, and you can sense the confusion and worry emanating from him. He remains seated but looks at you expectantly.

"I have to go."

"Stop being a prude; it's endearing sometimes but not now. I was going to come 'round later, because the mission may take a while and I wanted to say goodbye." He's about to get up when you finally find your voice. You don't want to, but you have to.

"NO." You say as forcefully as you can. "This…" You gesture to him and you, "this…it stops…we don't need to anymore…you don't need me anymore…no more pretences of getting to know your new students through me…Sakura's training under Tsunade…Naruto's gone to train under that pervert…and Sasuke's just…gone. We can't do this anymore…we can't lie to ourselves anymore…I can't be used like this anymore…I'm sorry." You don't wait to see what his facial reaction is; you just turn and leave; you had more planned, but it all died in your throat. You don't focus on the dead silence that's coming from him, but on just making it to the door, and then when you get home you can break down, but you have to get to the door first.

You're within three strides of it before you're slammed into the wall so hard plaster breaks and old scars re-open. His hands tighten around your upper arms; the bruising will be there for days. But you don't focus on any of that only the two eyes staring into your face. Black commas swirl continuously in a sea of red boring into your own eyes. He's furious and more hurt than you've ever seen him. In the few seconds that it has taken you to get close to the door, he's removed his hitai-ate and caught up with you even noticing. This is the reason why he's so well known, a true genius, one that's needed to protect their home.

You've never seen him angry before, annoyed but never angry, and you start to understand why he's so feared.

"No." He states with such raw emotion that it breaks your heart all over again. "I won't accept it." The certainness in your voice means that for a fleeting moment you almost believe him, but it passes and once again both of your must face reality. You open your mouth to say 'it's the truth,' but then you make the fatal mistake of looking into his eyes and the pain that's so visible it destroys you. This isn't fair. You try to focus your eyes anywhere but his eyes: his mouth or nose. Soon you find yourself staring dejectedly at the floor. This only seems to hurt him more, and he squeezes his hands tighter, hoping to elicit a reaction out of you.

"Why?" He whispers burying his head in your neck. He's always liked to do that, normally he did it when wanting something that always led to bed and aches in the morning, but now all he wants is comfort. You open your mouth to repeat what you've already said. "Don't lie," he says. You grasp at mental straws trying to come up with a feasible solution, but in the end, you decide to tell the truth.

"They found out, and told me it had to end," you say emotion tightly reigned in, the fury is no longer pointed at you but at the leaders of your home, and it increases tenfold. HE looks at you again, staring with both eyes, searching for falsehood.

"They can't do that," he says horrified at the implications, any self-pity now gone. "They've no right, not after everything we've done. We've served faithfully far too many years." The unsaid comment that _he's_ served faithfully too many years, doing the dirty work of village as he's commanded, remains silent in his throat.

"I was told you almost failed your mission; they didn't go into details, just that was an assassination and that…that he resembled me..." Kakashi tried to protest, but you continue on, "they've known for a while…they would turn a blind eye, but they say your performance _cannot_ be affected in any way, even if I'm the thing affecting you." His grip lessens slightly out of shock, you know what he's feeling, and you felt the same when Tsunade told you what you had to do. Yet, after the shock wore away, you couldn't find it in yourself to blame her, she has to put the village first, and he's a valuable source of defense: he's needed. You can tell from the way she delivered such an order that it hurt her inside; she doesn't want you to do it, more likely the politicians said it must be done. Relationships such as theirs are naturally frowned upon; there isn't even a possibility of heirs. Maybe they hope with your removal he'll find a woman who can produce more Shinobi geniuses. But you don't focus for very long on the reasoning for such a cruel order, only that it has to be done, for the repercussions will be far too serious otherwise.

"I don't want to…" Your voice is perilously close to breaking, "but I don't have a choice. I'm sorry, but I'm a coward. This is a mission, and I'm not allowed to fail it. If I do I'm to be sent to permanent sentry duty on the borders of Rock…" You trail off; you both know that to be sent there is suicide unless you're a jounnin; the raids there are just too dangerous. You hate it. You hate being used as an item to blackmail him with. You know there are few things that he values as highly as the safety of his team-mates and you. You feel like a prisoner of the village, a pawn to higher players, and for the first time, you hate Leaf for what it's doing to you.

"We have no choice," he says hollowly; he's finally broken, made into the perfect Shinobi, an unfeeling weapon. This hurts you the most; you can't let them undo all the work you've tried too hard to do. They can't destroy the man you're helping to re-build.

"I…" The words die on your tongue, but his eyes show the slightest glimmer of hope and humanity, so you feed it the only way know how. You kiss him. And soon he's returning it, and it swiftly becomes more frenzied, somehow you lead each other to the bedroom. Both of you pour your desperation and other unsaid feelings. It's only after the frenzy, when he's gingerly stroking the hair from your eyes, that you face the harsh reality. From now on you can never have what you truly want and you will forever have to pretend like there's nothing wrong as you pass each other on the street. And the more you think about it, the more it kills you, so you stop. You wait till he's quietly sleeping before you slip out of bed and go to the living room and slowly start to clean the rest of his weapons. At least you can make sure that he's safe.


	2. Five months, three weeks and 2 days…ish

You're walking down the alley, thinking of nothing in particular apart from what you'll eat make tonight with what you've just bought, when you feel it for the first time; someone's following you

IT LIVES! (also, this is my first attempt at smut so I hope it's alright, please leave me your constructive criticism on how you think I can improve it!)

I've finally worked out the story line for this thing (seriously it came to me in the most random way.. I've been trying to work on it on and off but it never really seemed to flow until now. Hopefully the next chapter should be up soon.)

Don't forget to review. I tried to improve the grammar as much as possible but it's not exactly my strongest point.

Thanks to all of you who reviewed in the last chapter, it really made me feel good.

Special Thanks to:

FluffyDolphin

Anhai

happychica

Talynden

Urd-20

AND OF COURSE A MASSIVE THANKS TO MY BETA **COPYNINASTRAL. (**The only person who can make sense of all my random attempts at grammar)

You're walking down the alley, thinking of nothing in particular apart from what you'll eat make tonight with what you've just bought, when you feel it for the first time; someone's following you. Spreading your senses slightly, you think you see something just outside the corner of your eye on the rooftop on your right. So it's a ninja following you and not a student. You're careful to act completely nonchalant; this is a city of ninjas: there's a chance you're just being paranoid. But just to be certain, you decided to take the less-used route home, behind the back alley of the restaurant that leads to the side gate of your block. And if someone's stupid enough to attack you then they're less people to play witness.

You turn down the side route and immediately the general noise of the main road fades away. The shadow's still there and now it's definitely following _only _you. You run through a quick list your head of people it could be; it's not any of your friends- they'd have just come up to you, it's not a student- they're not good enough, you hope it's not Raidou- because you just can't face what happened last night right now. And it most certainly isn't _him_- he truly seems to not care; you didn't know apathy could look so good on a man.

There's a slight crunch of shoe on ground and you know whoever's following you has decided to make himself known. You spin around to shout some obscenity about common decency and manners, but then he's behind you. In less than a second, he's got your arm pinned and your groceries fall forgotten to the floor. He twists hard enough to break, and you find yourself twisting to try to lessen the pain. You instinctively start to fight back.

"Don't."

He issues it like a command: the first word said in months. The shock itself stops you, and suddenly the full-body contact makes your heart race for entirely different reasons.

You're about to demand an explanation, but he shoves your face and body into a wall, effectively pinning you, and whispers harshly into your ear, "You stank of him." He tightens his hold on your arm, "you stank of him in the mission room. Everyone could smell it, and you didn't give a shit; never knew you had a thing for Jounnins, you kinky little shit." And suddenly you find yourself just as angry; he has _no right _to be angry at just you.

"So fucking what?" You hiss back. "We're not a couple, and it's been months. You're not the only one with a fucking libido."

And for some reason you feel like goading him, because then there's something left. Hatred is the flip-side of love, and you're pretty sure you're walking the tight rope between them both, not quite sure _what_ you feel anymore. Hatred is always better than apathy.

Before you know it, he's spun you around so now your back scrapes against the brick. All that is visible is the one eye, but it's all you need to see the burning anger and resentment. And suddenly you realize that what you've mistaken for apathy in the last few months is a man trying to convince himself not to feel. You'd almost feel upset or relieved that you'd been so wrong, if only you weren't so bloody angry. Your arm hangs listlessly at your side, and you feel pins and needles start as the blood rushes back. An angry retort is sitting on your tongue, when suddenly the angry glint in his eye becomes so much more. And you have less than a second to register that that glint used to mean desire, when he's kissing you as if he were a dying man come to water, and it feels just too _damn good _for you to stop him. Warning bells peel in your head, but you choose to studiously ignore them, sinking into the blissful realm of just _feeling_. You'd forgotten how good it could feel.

He pulls himself even closer and the grinding contact of groin-on-groin makes you hiss into his mouth. Fingers almost rip out his hair as you clench it, while he mauls your neck and you find yourself sliding your knee in between his legs and feel a vicious nip when you get the contact you wanted; it's frenzied but so very passionate.

But in between the lustful haze, warning bells remind you that you're only fifteen feet down an alley from a busy street behind a flimsy wooden fence and a smelly dumpster. He obviously realizes the same thing, because you suddenly feel the presence of his genjutsu pass over you and recognize the feeling of an illusion settling over the two of you. You can almost see what the passerby sees if they don't look so closely: a couple all but having sex. When his hands find a way inside your trousers, you fight the primal urge to shout some obscene comment. Women don't scream, and you know that's what an outsider sees. His hips grind against yours, and you can feel his hard-on as it pushes against yours. One hand glides from your trousers to underneath your shirt, fingers ghosting up your chest. Your back arches off the rough brickwork, between the sensations of his mouth, fingers, and your pelvis it almost feels as if it's _too_ much.

But you can't lose control just yet, that would be too soon. An irrational thought pops into your head that can barely make itself heard through the haze: what if he's doing this just to imprint himself on you, to remind you who you belong to? And just as you think it you become angry because _damnit_ you don't belong to anyone! And the overpowering urge to imprint yourself in _his_ body's memory just like he is doing to you is so strong it overwhelms everything else. You almost yank his head back by wrenching at his hair, barely giving him time to breath before you kiss him again. Neither of you close your eyes and both of you glare all the feelings that neither will ever say. But his is so intense that after a moment you close your eyes to just lose yourself in the feeling for a few precious moments. His hands come to rest at your neck as he pulls you closer; almost making you stand on tip-toes as he seems to be all but devouring you. It would almost seem caring and tender if the kiss wasn't so frantic.

You use the distraction to get revenge, to retake control of the situation. Hands scrape down his back, and you know that if it were on bare flesh it would leave marks. He hisses into your mouth, pleasure mingled with pain, and for a moment you think you'll almost be pressed flat as he pushes you against the brick wall again. You use whatever weight you can to gain a slight leverage, and your hands squeeze his thighs to be demanded entrance. He instinctively agrees and before his mind is back to being rational you slip your hands and trace lightly up his thigh before grasping it and slowly running your hand up and down it, just the way he likes. He pulls back slightly and breaks the kiss to rest his forehead against yours. His eyes are closed as he tries desperately not to show you how much your ministrations are getting to him, focusing only on the feelings you're giving him. He tries to keep his breathing even, and you find it almost cute the way he bites his lower lip to control himself. You know him well enough to know what that face means, so you grind and you tug and you feel as if you've achieved something when his mouth opens just slightly to emit the quietest of moans. But just as you start to kiss him again, you both feel it: someone just outside your vision isn't falling for your illusion. Someone sees you for what you are, and you barely have time to take a breath before he's gone, vanished in a second through whatever jutsu he wants. And all you're left with is spoiled fruit and the feeling in your stomach that tells you it's all gone to shit.

xoxo

It takes less than an afternoon before you're called before the great leader yourself. Piles of paperwork surround her and thumb and forefinger pinch the bridge of her nose as she tries to force away the onset of an early headache.

"It's come to my attention that you were up to something that you've been asked not to do." She says. You wonder who was being followed for this to be found out. It would make logical sense if you were the one followed, as you were less likely to notice than Kakashi. You find it almost ironic that they're constantly complaining about ninja being short-staffed, but they still find time to have a chunnin followed, so he doesn't go fuck what he's not supposed to.

"Umino, I'm sorry but you were warned." She says as if she's telling off a child. She glances up and down at her paperwork, you know it's a tactic used when desperately trying to think of a nice way to say something bad. You've used it on children who you're keeping back a year often enough. "This has gone over my head," which is a lie because she's the Hokage and you both know it, but neither say it. "It's been decided that in a month you're to be sent to the border of Rock for a period of 5 months for border patrol. You've been given a month to prepare yourself and to handover your class." She at least has the decency to look you in the eye as she says it.

You don't bother to complain; you're being made an example. Although it hurts and you'll probably rage when you get home, for now you talk in a normal voice and stay in shock. "Who will I be handing over my current duties to?"

"Nara Shikamaru." He's barely more than a child, but they've no one else to spare. She glances at Shizune, and you know you've been dismissed. You turn and leave; you make it to the stairs and out the building fine, and you even answer the waves and the odd greetings from random people. You even make it into your house thanks to autopilot honed after years of working at the mission room. You strip and clamber into your shower and it's only when the water's turned on and it's blisteringly hot do you finally release. You punch the tiles until they crack and your knuckles bleed, and only then do you stop.


	3. Countdown

It was before dawn when Gai had perched outside your window holding a pair of heinous bright orange weights

**Well **at least it wasn't a year before it got updated again!

A absolutely massive thank you to all the people who reviewed and put me on their stories to watch list. It made my day.

Also, a **massive** thank you to my Beta; Copyninastral (who puts up with all my awful grammar and my ramblings). It makes me smile 

As ever reviews means that a fairy is born and puppies get EVEN cuter

Special thanks to

Nelly

Ice dragon3

Cjandre

Copyninastral

corybee

your reviews made me smile a ridiculous amount!

**3 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours and 54 minutes. **

It's before dawn when you find Gai perched outside your window holding a pair of heinous, bright-orange weights. After a moment or two of confusion at the continued rapping you open the window to let him in, but he remains perched outside, merely extending his arm with the sweatbands.

"Put them on," he commands. You give him a questioning stare and he replies, "we have to improve your stamina. I'll take you for a run today, but after that go running with them by yourself and I'll come by most evenings to work on your jujutsu."

Your mouth hangs open in surprise, but he doesn't move. You're obviously awake, so you make your way to the bathroom to change (like hell you'll do it in front of him) and within the next half an hour you've come up with at least 30 ways to kill the Green Beast as he puts you through your paces.

At the end of it you feel sorely tempted to ask him why he's doing it, but it's not until the following week that you finally ask him as you block a side-splitting mid-kick from the Green Beast.

"Challenges always have to be accepted," He says cryptically, but as far as you know he only holds challenges with one-silver-eyed man

**2 weeks, 3 days, 12 hours and 32 minutes.**

The next to appear is Kurenai. She turns up saying she'll help you with your gen-jutsu. When you ask her why she morphs into a tree in front of your eyes and mutters something about her students, but you've been a teacher long enough to know a bare-faced lie when you see one, smug one-eyed bastard.

But beggars can't be choosers and you'll accept all the help you can get.

**2 weeks, 1 day, 1 hour and 42 minutes.**

It's only when Anko attacks you with a kunai as you walk through your door that you start to feel it's getting ridiculous.

"You haven't got any traps up." She says as if she's chiding a child. The comment that you shouldn't really need them in your home village almost comes out before you realise such logic is lost on paranoid jounin.

She motions towards the table and you see that tags are laid out in a neat, straight pattern.

"These are the ones I've got with me; I can give you more later, but you need to start working on these now."

You glance at the Kanji written on them to see what they do, and while you may not be a tag expert you know enough to know these ones cause serious damage.

"You need to be able to create, copy, and use all of them correctly. They're all pretty simple, but if you learn these in time then I can show you more… _interesting_ ones." She says as she puts away her kunai. You really don't want to know what she means by "interesting."

"I'll come by in a few days," she says as if giving you homework, and you find it grating that after being a teacher so long you've now become the student.

"But start using at least warning devices; otherwise, I'll just start wandering in when I want!" She says as she walks out the door with a wink.

You start double-checking all of them after that.

**1 week, 2 days, 18 hours and 9 minutes**

As you crawl back home, exhausted from what you've recently dubbed 'Hell on earth time,' you find yourself so used to unexpected guests that Pakkun sitting on your doorstep elicits almost no reaction out of you. He gives you a lazy stare, and you give him a pat on the head. He says nothing as you unlock the door and disable the traps (Anko has you practising now). He potters in after you, and it's only as he jumps up onto your couch (which you've taken to sleeping on after the Gai incident) that you notice he's got a file stuffed under his flack jacket. He shrugs off the vest and pulls out the surprisingly thick file.

"It's for you," he grunts.

"I take it they're from him." You don't say his name because then all of this becomes real. He grunts and jumps down, ambling into the kitchen and seeing if there's any food for him to steal. You pick up the file and glance through it. The scrawl is recognisable immediately after so many days at the mission desk, and the code is a simple one. You swiftly realise that it's a copied report of the geography of the border. The next note contains old mission reports, ninja that they're regularly pitted against, techniques commonly used and strategies to use against them. At the very bottom it contains a hurried side-note mentioning that it seems to have been used as a short cut for their ANBU for missions into Fire and that if found they should be merely reported and NOT engaged.

But in all these notes, there's not a single personal note from him and no message from Pakkun. And for some unexplained reason that annoys you more than you want to admit.

**0 weeks, 6 days, 12 hours and 11 minutes,**

You start to triple-check the traps when you come out of the shower and find "nice butt" written in the steam of the mirror with a scrawl which you can only assume is her signature.

**0 weeks, 0 days, 7 hours and 59 minutes**

You glance once more around the sterile, empty apartment. It won't be yours while you're 'away', some other ninja's instead. The pack sits in the corner filled with everything you'll need for the months ahead. The files lie in a neat pile on your table, ready to be dropped off in an envelope and mailed back to him. You've already given the weights back to Gai, and Anko's told you to keep the seals for the traps just in case, no… _when, _you'll need them. You glance at the clock, 7 hours and 57 minutes before you have to leave to report at the gate and leave with your new team. You run through a mental checklist to see if there's anything you've missed. The class has been handed over to the new, competent teacher who's been fully informed of all your different students' idiosyncrasies and everything you own, even if just a little, has been noted in your will for Naruto. It's as you realise that there is nothing to do but wait and sleep that the full implications of what is going to happen finally dawns on you, having taken a month to sink in.

Except, before you can even contemplate or start wallowing in self-pity you feel the slight change in the air as the window to your room is opened and someone stalks in completely silent. You don't need heightened skills to know who it is.

"Why are there no traps here?" He asks as he saunters in like the shadow he can be and you feel the cold steal of his kunai against your jugular. You almost feel like telling him you _knew _he was there. But then he probably wouldn't believe you.

"Forgive me for wanting to conserve energy for the trip ahead. I took the calculated risk that I wasn't going to be attacked in my own home hours before I leave." You say dryly. All is still for a moment but he accepts your answer and the kunai disappears from your throat. Finally, he steps out of the darkness and enters your field of vision; face half-covered by shadows cast in the semi-darkness. He doesn't join you in sitting down, choosing to stay standing. He glances at the scrolls and records that are neatly placed on your table.

"I was going to mail them to you."

"You should just destroy them instead." He chides, as if you've made an obvious mistake.

"Have you memorised everything?" He asks, as he pointedly refuses to look at you but touches the paper gently, disturbing the neat pile to make the spartan room look slightly more habitable, more like your home with all it's glorious lived-in mess. And as he does he starts to reel off facts.

"Rock Nin placed there have jounin status or higher; there's been a noticeable increase in their equivalent of ANBU using it as a launching point into Fire. Their attacks are rock-based; records have shown that they can be up to 6-feet high before weakening. Wind and water based attacks work well against…" He continues to reel at a quickening pace as if willing to impart all his knowledge onto you.

"Kakashi." You say calmly to try to interrupt him, but he refuses to listen. You take his hand in yours and stand as you get him to finally look at you, to acknowledge you. And as you look at him you find all the nervousness and fear is gone.

"Kakashi."

He pauses.

"I've memorised all the files." And the words 'I'm ready' are about to follow out but they don't… because you're not. You're just a chunnin about to go up against something you're not expected to.

His eyes close in defeat, and he finally admits what you've both known for a while. "You're not ready." He half-whispers and half-pleads. The lie still sits there on your tongue, but instead you find only the truth will do.

"I know," you say in a whisper.

A half-sob/half-choke escapes him as both of you realise that _you will die_. And even though he's seen so much death, it obviously still hurts him to lose you. Meanwhile, all you can muster for yourself is a quiet acceptance.

Your mouth opens to speak, but the words remain formless in your head and without realising it you place a chaste kiss on his lips to convey everything you want..._need _to say. But he pulls away as if suddenly burnt.

"You have to leave in… 7 hours 45 minutes." He says briskly, all emotions reigned in.

"If I'm being punished for a crime, I may as well commit it." You say in defence, wanting just this one moment to be selfish. Kakashi says nothing and starts to pull away before you grab him and say, "Just sleep here tonight… just sleeping." A dying man's request.

You can almost feel the resistance crumbling as you pull him towards your bedroom, past the mission notes and past the ready-made pack. Eyes memorise the scarred body as he strips to all but the essentials and your clothes mingle with his as you quickly follow him under the covers. One chaste kiss follows another, but before it becomes too heated sensibilities take over and true to your word you find sleep claiming you. And for the first time in months it's easy and relaxing as arms slightly longer and paler than yours hold you, and for just a moment you can forget what sunrise will bring.


End file.
